War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past (2 page)

Anlon knew he had just found a way to track
down his family's killers. He had more than enough information
about the races in order to track them down, at least from what
Kanti said anyway. The hard part would be finding where this
database was and how exactly he would get in once he did find it.
But if Kanti had snuck down without anybody's knowledge, he was
sure there was a way that he could too.

"So once we start my questioning, this is how
you will find who killed my family?" Anlon asked, trying squeeze
out more information.

Kanti shook her head. "Yes. They shouldn't be
too hard to find. Leaving you alive made it a lot easier for us to
track them down."

Anlon saw the hospital coming into view and
readied himself to exit the vehicle. As soon as Kanti pulled up to
the front, Anlon stepped out of the car and waited for her to come
around and lead the way in. She talked to a robot at the reception
desk and then led him through a door that labeled
Patient
Checkup
. Upon entering the room, Anlon saw humans, robots, and
other races moving all over the place.

An old nurse approached them. "Hello Officer
Kanti. What can I do for you today?"

"He's been shot with an Exodus Era style
handgun," She pointed to Anlon. "I had MB-398 do work on him and
make sure that everything was okay, but Giustino just wants a
person to check up on him to make sure that he's in good
health."

"Oh, is that right?" The nurse held her hand
out to Anlon. "Well you come follow me young man. We'll make sure
that there is nothing out of the ordinary wrong with you."

Anlon followed the nurse into a room and sat
on one of the white operating benches. The entire room was a
sterilized white, not a grey smudge anywhere. He turned around on
the bench and stared at a black hole in the wall.

"That's where we'll put you to make sure that
everything is okay," The nurse smiled. "I just need you to lay down
on the operating table and we'll slide you right on in."

"What's it going to do to me?" he asked.

She smiled. "It's just a really big scanner
is all. It will check for poisons, wounds, sicknesses; just
anything that is wrong with your body that's out of the ordinary.
Once it is finished, it will print off a report to let me know if
there is anything wrong with you."

"Wow that's really cool," Anlon raised his
eyebrows. "What if there is something wrong with me?"

"It will give me a list of different
medications that I can give to you if it's not severe. If it's
severe, we will send you to Apollo where they will carry out any
advanced procedures that we can't carry out here, but those are
just the extreme cases. I can tell you right now that you don't
need to travel to Apollo, so just lay down and we'll get this over
with," she chuckled.

Anlon laid down on the operating table. He
had heard of Apollo and the very intelligent race that had made it
their home. Something had happened to the land of the planet very
early in its life, he couldn't remember exactly what though, but
the race had evolved and overcome the disaster. Over time, they
specialized in healing of all types and all of Orion went to them
for cures and different advanced procedures.

Anlon closed his eyes as he felt the table
float backwards into the dark hole behind him. When he entered, he
opened to see only darkness enveloping him, until a light started
quickly circling around him. It did it for several minutes and
changed colors and made noises throughout the process. When the
lights stopped, the bench hovered back out into the room and the
white momentarily blinded him. He hadn't felt a thing while he had
been inside and had actually been waiting for something to happen
other than the lights circling him as he emerged from the hole.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with you. MB-398
did an excellent job of taking care of your wound," The nurse
walked over with papers in her hands.

Anlon smiled. "Thank you for the good
news."

"You can go back out to Kanti now. She told
me she wanted to let you rest here for the night before taking you
down to the station tomorrow."

Anlon got up off of the table and pushed the
door open to see Kanti already waiting outside of the room for
him.

"So is everything okay Anlon?"

He nodded his head. "Everything checks out.
She said MB-398 did a great job and that there is nothing else
wrong with me."

Kanti smiled. "I'm glad to hear that Anlon.
I'll take you to the room where you'll rest for the night," She
turned around and started walking down the hall. "We'll take you in
for questioning tomorrow to try to figure out some more things.
Forensics is at your house right now, but I'm sure you'll be able
to tell us a lot more in detail than forensics can ever gather in
evidence. They're good, but first-hand accounts are always
better."

Anlon nodded and followed Kanti to the room
he'd be staying in for the night. He knew he had to be careful
about how he answered some of the questions the next day, but he
couldn't make it obvious that he was hiding things. He hadn't been
blindfolded, and he knew they knew that, so he'd have to tell them
they weren't human killers. He was sure that wouldn't matter
because the races were most likely already off of Gaea and headed
back to Plouton by now.

He would tell the officers everything he knew
except for the names of the races and that they had come from
Plouton. By telling the officers the other things, there was a
chance that they could actually help him find the killers before
they had the chance to track them down themselves.

Anlon knew it was going to take a lot more than
just finding these races to avenge his family's execution. He would
need weapons, combat and survival training, and a ship to get to
Plouton. Finding out exactly who these races were and why they
wanted to kill his family was just the beginning. He had no doubt
that he would find them and when he did, he would be ready.
Training was the one thing that he was good at; at one point he
thought that it would be useless, but he now knew that it was the
most important thing he possessed.

Donnchadh and his men made it to their ship
undetected by any law enforcement, which was easy since cruisers
weren't a common sight in the Hassental District. Donnchadh had
done extensive research before coming and knew exactly what to
expect at all times. He had carried the mission out at night so the
dark would mask his ship from any possible onlookers. He eased up
the controls of the cruiser and pulled it underneath his black
ship,
Cerberus.
They got out of the cruiser and Donnchadh
pressed a series of hidden buttons on the bottom of the ship,
prompting a hidden compartment to hiss open and take up the
cruiser.

Cerberus
was used for a lot of his
illegal activities and needed to have secret doors all over the
ship to store any type of weapon or vehicle he needed for a job.
There were times when he went through security and he didn't need
them uncovering things that he would use to carry out an
assassination. Being the best assassin of the Deimos Brotherhood,
that was his primary objective.

For this assignment, Donnchadh specifically
hadn't gone through the spaceport because he didn't want anyone to
know that he had ever been here. A ship believed to be associated
with the Deimos Brotherhood would garner attention that he didn't
want for this quick assignment. He had entered Gaea using a stealth
field and landed the ship far from any prying eyes, but one misstep
and he knew they'd be quickly caught.

Donnchadh boarded the ship right behind the
other two. "Is everything ready to go so we can get out of
here?"

An Arachnid gave a thumbs up. "We're ready to
lift off when you are Donnchadh."

"Then let's get this ship up and running so
we can leave Gaea. I'm sure all the planetary police have been
informed of what has happened at the Valens' house and they're sure
to have upped their security by now. The sooner we get out of here,
the better."

"Stealth generator is ready to go!"
Sanguinarius, a lizard-like race, turned around from the co-pilot
seat.

"Go man one of the turrets Ulisse. I don't
want to take any chances of getting caught. Once you're in place
let us know and we're taking off."

Ulisse ran to the back of the ship and
climbed up the stairs to the upper deck of
Cerberus
. He
manned a turret and scrolled through the different ammo types
before selecting sonic rounds. One hit with this type of round and
the enemy ship would be completely destroyed, along with any nearby
ships that happened to be in the blast radius.

"I'm ready Donnchadh!" Ulisse yelled down to
the cockpit.

Donnchadh pulled down red latches above his
head and pressed a series of buttons on the dash, making the
engines roar to life. He pressed another button in front of him and
the Galactic Space Map popped up, filling up the entire cockpit
window with different known routes he had recorded. Donnchadh set
his destination to one of Plouton's moons: Erebos.

"Time to go back home to beautiful Erebos,"
He muttered sarcastically under his breath.

Donnchadh turned the ship and pressed the
yoke forward, quickly heading toward space. This landing spot had
been chosen due to its far proximity from any major cities or
spaceports, making the chances of being spotted even lower. It was
clear within minutes that he had been right. He and his men exited
Gaea without being spotted by any planetary police.

"Take off the Stealth Field and initiate
SonoDrive Sanguinarius," Donnchadh ordered.

Sanguinarius reached out to open a small
clear box and pressed a red button after turning off the Stealth
Field. With SonoDrive they would be able to travel to Erebos, which
was on the outer edges of the Orion, in a matter of hours.
Donnchadh got up out of his seat and headed up the stairs to his
personal quarters for rest until they arrived at their
destination.

He had waited and planned a long time to kill
Armino Valens and his family. The hardest part of the whole mission
was convincing Kirill to allow him to do it. He knew Kirill didn't
want one of his best men to get caught on a mission as simplistic
as revenge, but in the end, he saw that killing Armino would help
them with future plans. It would be a relief to let Kirill know
that everything had gone as planned and no one would even know that
the Deimos Brotherhood was behind it all. If the Deimos Brotherhood
had been suspected of the job, then their next job might have been
sensed by the Queen and her Council, which could ruin their
ultimate plan. With Armino out of the way, his next big mission
would be a breeze - assassinating Queen Adira.

Kanti and Anlon pulled up to the Hassental
District Prison shortly after leaving the hospital. The police
station was a large octagonal building made out of stone and
surrounded by razor sharp electrical fences that stood twenty feet
tall. Guard posts were set up at each corner and were manned by two
guards with snipers.

Anlon knew the security was more for show
since Hassental was a relatively peaceful District. The Council on
Hera demanded every District take the right measures to insure no
criminal escaped though, so the prison had been built to meet their
standards. Every criminal would be transported to Themis
eventually, where a trial heard by eight judges would determine the
criminal's ultimate fate, which consisted of being sent to one of
its moons. Each moon was set up for a different type of crime and
it was up to the eight judges to figure out where that criminal
deserved to go.

Kanti pulled her car into the parking garage
took a spot reserved for her right up front. "Giustino should
already be inside waiting for us."

Anlon let out a deep breath. "Let's get this
over with."

He followed Kanti to a clear circular door
with no handle and watched as Kanti held up an I.D. card to a
sensor on the side of the door and a green laser scanned her
eyes.

"Welcome Kanti Cordula," A robotic voice
said.

The door hissed open, revealing the pristine
station waiting for them to enter. The station was much bigger than
he had imagined, it was more like a giant three story mall than any
police station he had seen pictures of. Officers briskly walked
from place to place trying to complete their tasks for the day.
Different modeled robots doing different a variety of jobs only
added to the hysteria they were walking through. He followed Kanti
to a glass elevator and they ascended to the second floor of the
station where Kanti led him to an office with a plaque on the door
reading: Giustino Ignace. She knocked on the door three times and
took a small step back.

A stressed voice emerged from within the
office. "Come in."